> I could not agree more about Vatican II. Yet, I've never heard anyone > attribute the decline in SAT scores to the lack of exposure to Latin, despite > the fact that Latin-based words are the whole stromboli of the verbal SAT. > Let's just say that Vatican II is one of several contributing factors that include others that we are only too familiar with (decline of reading, increase of electronic media, unavailability of parents, a larger and more diverse student population, etc. etc.). In response to the request for sources. A recent article in "The Classical Journal" (91.2, 1995, 165-84) offers an extensive bibliography. The article itself, as the title indicates, takes a somewhat specialized view: "An exploratory study on the effects of Latin on the native language skills and foreign language aptitude of students with and without learning disabilities". The cognitive and linguistic (and other) effects of bilingualism have been studied extensively. A classic text is "Bilinguality and Bilingualism" by Josiane Hamers & Michel Blanc (Cambridge University Press, 1987). But I think Vygotsky in his "Thought and Language" said it best: "The bilingual child learns to see [her or] his language as one particular system among many, to view its phenomena under more general categories, and this leads to awareness of [her or] his linguistic operations." Mieke Mieke Koppen Tucker Bishop's University Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada